Farewell to 2013, one of the worst years in the history of the nation, and hello to 2014, one of the most crucial. For it is now that the campaign to dismantle Obamaism must begin if conservatives are to have any hope of victory in 2016. Winning in 2016 won’t be easy, as there’s a two-front war to fight. First, the defeat of the GOP wing of the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party, which has already announced its own war on the Tea Party. And second, the crushing of Hillary Clinton, whose campaign for president was officially kicked off by the New York Timeson Sunday with its absurd and provablydishonestBenghaziwhitewash.The nut graf from their piece:

Months of investigation by The New York Times, centered on extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault. The attack was led, instead, by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s extensive air power and logistics support during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi. And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.

It’s a perfect feedback loop of naïvety, and one that should have stopped an editor in his tracks: “You mean to say you’re basing your report on ‘extensive interviews’ with the very people who have a vested interest in lying to you? And which turned up ‘no evidence’ to contradict the Obama administration’s party line? Nice job!” But so it goes when your primary mission is political, not reportorial. Andy Rosenthal even gave the game away in this blog post, explaining why the Republicans were so het up about the Times’s story:

For anyone wondering why it’s so important to Republicans that Al Qaeda orchestrated the attack — or how the Obama administration described the attack in its immediate aftermath — the answer is simple. The Republicans hope to tarnish Democratic candidates by making it seem as though Mr. Obama doesn’t take Al Qaeda seriously. They also want to throw mud at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who they fear will run for president in 2016.

Which brings us to one particularly hilarious theme in the response to the Times investigation. According to Mr. Rogers, the article was intended to “clear the deck” for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said today that The Times was “already laying the groundwork” for a Clinton campaign. Other Republicans referred to Mrs. Clinton as our “candidate of choice.”

Since I will have more to say about which candidate we will endorse in 2016 than any other editor at the Times, let me be clear: We have not chosen Mrs. Clinton. We have not chosen anyone. I can also state definitively that there was no editorial/newsroom conspiracy of any kind, because I knew nothing about the Benghazi article until I read it in the paper on Sunday.

Well, okay then, although methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. Still, in order for the poison that is the Obama agenda to fully invade the body politic, the Democrats and their Times Square mouthpieces understand they must win the next presidential cycle or two in order to kill the patient good and dead, and thus fully effect the “fundamental transformation” from the Founders’ republic to the reanimated corpse of a socialist zombie.

A few observations:

Since the Times has announced the beginning of the horse race, the krack kadres of GOP kampaign konsultants should immediately have TV spots running all over the country, highlighting Mrs. Clinton’s callous, career-ending comment about “four dead Americans . . . what difference, at this point, does it make?” Not a week should go by that her statement isn’t front and center in Republican talking points, and it needs to be hammered home relentlessly until she is politically buried beneath its weight. Of course . . .

That will never happen, since according to the Marquess of Queensberry rules, the GOP can’t possibly consider Campaign 2016 until around Labor Day, 2016. And then, if past history is predictive of future actions, it will nominate the one man who cannot beat Mrs. Clinton on the issue of Islamic terrorism — which will almost certainly be one of the central issues of the campaign. Indeed, the one man whose demonstrable strengths will be rendered null and void against a female candidate’s feminine wiles, making him look like a big fat bully. In the meantime . . .

The Washington Generals — perennial losers who will nevertheless fight to keep their privileged table-scraps positions in Washington — will do everything in their power to crush their real enemy, movement conservatives who actually believe in the Constitution and wish to see it observed and enforced. Sure, from time to time (election time) they might talk a good game, but by now it ought to be clear to even the most trusting soul that they don’t really mean it. They’ve accepted and internalized the Nanny State, and all they wish to do (if that) is slow its rate of growth so they can maintain their “conservative” labels. So don’t expect . . .

Any help at all from John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the others, men who mistake the process of government for the purpose of government. Unless and until they’re replaced, things will only get worse.